Burning Blood
by OniJack
Summary: Ten years after the conclusion of the Air Gear manga, an old danger rises to challenge a new generation of storm riders. Threatening to renew the hope that the original regalia represented, new interests set their sights on the legendary Sky Regalia. And yet, familiar faces lie in waiting, biding their time for their moment to strike...


**Chapter 1/Prologue  
****Memories Etched in Blood**

"_**I decided that I wanted to believe. Believe that somewhere under the great blue sky... There must be a person with wings wide enough to support everything and still fly."**_

* * *

**Alex**

**1**

_I remember that Sara was the one who first got the news. _

_ We had been inside this crowded bar off of Western and 76th when her mobile rang. Sara leaned away from me and looked down into her hand, at the caller ID flashing across the little rectangular screen. Her brow furrowed and she sighed, sweeping her long black hair behind her ear. She motioned with one hand, pointing to the bathroom and simultaneously scrunching her lips into a soft expression of apology. I smiled after her, privately enjoying the sight of her back as she walked off and disappeared behind a laughing group of people. I turned my attention to the TV in the corner of the room and took a slow sip from my drink, restraining a wince. I could only just barely tolerate the bitter taste of alcohol. On the dim screen, a game of AFA (American Air-Foot league) was being broadcast—the Miami Sharks were playing the Tennessee Giants. I wasn't really a fan of this particular sport, but I sat through a touchdown and even cheered heartily with the rest of the bar in the time it took Sara to return_

_. I noticed that something was wrong right away. Sara looked slightly breathless; her eyes were wide and shiny, her teeth pressed gingerly into her lower lip. I looked down at her hands and saw that her hands were balled into tight fists—her knuckles stuck out, white and taut marble. _

_ What's wrong? I mouthed over the background noise of laughter and music._

_ Sara shook her head and motioned for me to follow. We threw a few crumpled bills on the table and left, exiting out through a dark alcove, into an adjacent alley. _

_ "What's happened?" I tried again._

_ "The unthinkable," Sara replied. Unexpectedly, her eyes reach out behind me and she scans the narrow space around us nervously, almost like she's afraid someone might have been eavesdropping. I look around, but as far as I can tell, we're are alone in this cramped, filthy place. There might have been a few rats in the dumpster to our left, but that wasn't really anything to worry about. _

_ Sara said: "It's the absolute worse case scenario."_

_ And then she reached down and yanked off a single long boot. She opened her pack and revealed a pair of long, shiny silver skates, each with a large third wheel attached to the front of the boot; the gem sub-regalia—_Softest Testament_. I stared at them for a moment before following suit and dropping my own pack to the littered alley floor. I pulled back the zipper and revealed my own pair of air trecks; slim and yet with a jagged frame and serrated wheels; the fang sub-regalia—_Blind Wolf_. _

_ "We've got to get to the airport right away," Sara said, and without even waiting for me, she was gone. She flung herself into the air above the alley, using the rain gutter system to quickly rise, crossing over in a gracile series of grinds and hops, she traced the cloudy night sky gracefully with one leg as she landed on the roof above. _

_ I tried crying out after her, but she didn't wait for me to finish tying my braces and so I ascended into the city skyline with my air trecks loose. We rode alongside the chill wind for a while, two shadowy specters dancing alongside the electric hum of the city below, and the twisting grey of the sky above. It took all of my skill to keep up with Sara with my air trecks tied loosely, but I didn't want to risk stopping, even for a moment, to fasten them tighter, because I was afraid that I would lose her in this wild flight. And for a terrible couple of seconds, I do lose sight of her on top of a three story apartment riser, but I spotted her again, her slight form dipping to the east, on to a fast food restaurant four blocks over. _

_ "Woah, hold on!" I cried, grabbing on to her arm when I caught up to her on the roof. "Slow down a minute and explain! What's going on? What do you mean, _airport_?"_

_ Here, Sara had paused for a bit, her phone held to her ear to quickly make a call, and she looked back at me, her expression still frantically mixed and diced with panic. _

_ "They've found a regalia," Sara said. I didn't understand, and it must have shown on my face because she adds: "_Not _a sub-regalia. _Not _a copy like ours. An honest to god, original regalia core."_

_ I dropped my hand and gaped dumbly, letting this information register. _

_ "That's impossible," I protested slowly. "They destroyed all the original regalia cores nine years ago. This... this..." I shook my head and took a deep breath. Finally, I asked: "Which core is it?" _

_ But already, my stomach squirmed with nervous agitation—already, I knew. Only one regalia could possibly incite Sara to this kind of panic. This kind of mad dash that was so unlike her usual laidback composure. One only regalia could ruin everything for her—for _them_._

_ Sara confirmed my fears: "It's the wind regalia—Moonstruck Drop Bagram." _

**2**

_Sixteen hours later, I was strapped into the windy, rumbling bench side of a military cargo carrier jet. _

_ Sore, I draped myself inside a burly, thick coat and tried to bury myself into a sleeping stupor that had been eluding me for hours. My eyes, my bones, heavy and numb from the cold and the lack of rest. My ass, chapped and aching from the uncomfortable metal bench and the guttural rumbling of the engine. Every now and then, my teeth rattled uncomfortably in my mouth and I would came close to biting down on my tongue. _

_ "The Russians found it," Sara explained._

_ I blinked awake in the throttle of the hold. Disoriented, I glanced down the hold and found that the color of the sky beyond the mesh grating had given way to darker violets and blues. I resisted the urge to check my watch for the time—I had no idea what timezone I now occupied. _

_ Beside me, Sara was seated without the many straps and mesh holds that lined the plane wall. I remember that she seemed preternaturally at ease within the noisy carriage space, her form occasionally bounced expectantly with each heavy bob and weave that the jet took as it bounded its way across the afternoon sky. And yet, I noted apprehensively, her condition has not bettered since we had rushed out of that smoky bar all those hours ago. Rather, she seemed especially exhausted to me. Her eyes had lost their shiny tinge of adrenaline, and now her lids hung limp and dark. Her shoulders drooped, and with each breath she seemed to fight back a desperate yawn. The pitch of her voice was unusually strained and hoarse, and although she smiled as she talked to the others, I could see how forced it all was by the pull of her temple muscles. _

_ "_Russians_?" Willis asked, rubbing his small square chin with his thumb. "You mean the Russian government? The Russian military? Who exactly?"_

_ "It doesn't matter," Sara said. On her lap, a laptop sat open, and Sara tapped away at its keys, her eyes darting back and forth against the bright screen. "What does matter is that they can't be allowed to keep it."_

_ There was (relative) silence following this proclamation—only the hearty engine gutter beat reverberated across the carrier._

_ I stretched and turned my attention to the others—the other storm riders seated in the cargo hold, the other members of Sara's team. Brent and Willis, of the lather and rising road respectively. Truthfully, I had never really held much love for either of them. They are not like me or Sara—they did not hold the lifelong history that tied them together in friendship. Nor do they have the skill or ability that marked them as kings of the air treck world. Yet, when Seth had turned against Sara and split away from the team, taking half of the members with him, Brent and Willis had remained behind, their loyalty bound to Sara. For this fealty, I had come to respect them both greatly. _

_ "We're going to steal the regalia?" Brent asked. His languid features pulled back into an expression of ludicrous disbelief. "We're going to start an international incident if we pull this shit off."_

_ "We have no choice," Sara said. "Seth _will _come for it."_

_ At the mention of this name, silence fell on us again. _

_ My eyes drifted back down the open space of the carrier, back toward the slight opening in the hold through which I could see the orange sky above. The bright light clashed with the black ambiance of the darkness within the jet plane and I had to strain to focus on the bright dichotomy. Sleep finally found me then, and for an hour at least, I drifted into an uneasy but much welcomed dreamless respite. _

**3**

_Sara's cold palm nudged my cheek. My consciousness puttered awake, and I looked around the dark hold in alarm for a moment before I remembered exactly where I was._

_ Sara waited for recollection to return to me before she uttered, "It's time." _

_ I stared at her for a moment before nodding. Sara smiled and held my arm for a moment. _

_ "Thank you for believing in me," she said. "I know I've asked a lot of you, but I need your strength for just a little bit longer..."_

_ And for just a moment, I thought I saw something terrible in her face. Something about the way her eyes rested on my forehead and refused to budge down to meet his eyes. Something about the way the corners of her mouth were turned ever so slightly downward. Something about the way that the crease between her brow had tightened into a fierce knot. But the moment passed and Sara turned away, to the others in the plane hold with us, and I'm left with the disquieting feeling that I imagined the entire thing. _

_ Willis and Brent crouched beside the door and yanked it open at the count of three, struggling against the fierce wind to roll it aside. Outside, in the sheer black of evening, a second plane flew about fifty meters away, angled just below their own transportation. It was a small private jet, and yet according to Sara's informant, this was the plane that was carrying the regalia core—probably en route to a highly defended military base somewhere. _

_ "Alex, carve it open," Sara said grimly. "Brent. Willis. Take care of anyone inside. They'll probably be armed so be careful. I'll find the regalia."_

_ The entire ordeal went rather smoothly, actually._

_ The distance was too far for the other storm riders to safely cross by jumping, and so they take turns crossing with my help. First Sara—she leaped out into the hurtling wind and I kicked out after her, sending a shock wave of inertial energy—a _fang—_after her. Expertly, Sara angled her air trecks onto the _fang_, grinding on top of it until reaching the jet plane below. Similarly, Brent and Willis took turns reaching the small jet in this fashion, albeit with much more trouble grinding atop the crash of force. _

_ I'm the last one out of the place. I jumped out and met the jagged bite of high atmospheric wind cover head on, landing on the military plane's wing, I ran along its side, scraping one leg behind me as I went. At the tip, I bounded off, soaring into empty space and toward the target plane. I gritted my teeth and swung my leg downward, letting the energy I had built up by dragging it along the wing release itself in a crescent wave. This _fang_ is different than the small arcs that Sara and the team had grinded, both in size and power. This is the _Bahamut Fang_. This enormous twisting wave of force hurled toward the jet plane, its impact dug savagely into the jet's reinforced metal, twisting around the jet's body and cutting into it again and again like an electric saw. By the time I landed on the target plane's closest wing, a large gash had been torn into the jet plane's side—large enough for our group to slip inside, into the jet's cramped bathroom, one at a time. _

_ Inside, four armed guards are summarily incapacitated by Brent and Willis. As per the plan they had outlined earlier, I tore into the cockpit and captured the pilot, ordering him to turn the plane around and instructing him toward the airfield which he would be landing. Sara had ripped one of the leather passenger seats open and revealed a sleek suitcase hidden inside the undercoating foam. She knelt on the jet floor and entered the passcode necessary to unlock its clasp and reveal its contents. I edged forward. Brent and Willis hung back. The air was heavy with tense nervousness. _

_ The inside was mostly protected styrofoam, but lying inside, in a space at the very center of the mold, were a pair of white air treck wheels. The pair looked incredibly worn and fractured, and seemed to have suffered an amazing deal of damage for they were cracked and splintered in many placed. And yet, something could be seen along the side of the wheels. Old words, perhaps; I had to crane his neck to read their message: _Welcome to Nightmare.

_"This is it," Sara said in something only a little more than a breathe. She reached down and took the wheels in her hands, running her fingers alongside their aged edge. "The legendary wind regalia, Moonstruck Drop Bagram." Words seemed to fail her then, and so instead she brought the wheels closer to her chest and shook her head. "This is incredible."_

_ "I agree," a voice spoke up behind then. "This is abso-fucking-lutely amazing."_

_ The group of storm riders jumped and turned around._

_ Standing at the far end of the cabin, a teenager leaned against the galley entrance, glaring at the group huddled around the wind regalia. His features were sharp, his body slim and yet pronounced. Most distinctively, his wild hair was completely white, and his eyes a dark ruby red. Embedded within his pupils, bright white t-shaped crosses shone mysteriously._

_ Gravity child._

_ Seth._

_ "Hey, guys," he said innocently, a single hand reaching out towards them, expectantly. "That looks like a cool toy you got yourselves there. Mind if I take a look?"_

**4**

_Three other forms entered the cabin behind Seth, exiting discreetly from the bathroom. Two guys and a girl—the traitors. The other ex-members of Sara's team. _

_ "You hitched a ride on our own plane?" Sara said suddenly, a small smile parting her lips. "I was so worried about getting this before you..." She raised the two wheels in her palm and turned them around, front to back. "It figures I'd be the one to lead you here."_

_ I growled under his breathe at the sight of his old friend._

_ Seth shrugs amicably, his hand still outstretched. "Let's get down to business, shall we? Give me the wind regalia and you'll walk away from this wonderful encounter alive—"_

_ I kicked off. Turning to a sudden halt, he twisted his leg outward, kicking in Seth's direction, sending a _fang_ whistling at his face._

_ "Alex, don't!" Sara cried out. _

_ Seth turned his outreached hand and pushed against the wave of energy. With his free hand, he molded the air in front of him with an invisible force—a _Moon Drop_—and caught the air around the incoming _fang_, solidifying and pressurizing the wind around it, overwhelming my _fang_ in a small explosion that rattled the jet around them terribly and threatened to rock them to their feet. _

_ "Now, now," Seth cautioned with a cluck and swag of his fingers. "Don't be so reckless, Alex, or we might have to tear this nice plane apart."_

_ "It might be worth it to watch you fall out of the sky, Seth," I responded, motioning a leg forward, threatening to launch another _fang_, before Sara reached out and grasped my shoulder, urging me to show restraint._

_ Seth frowned. Imperiously, he motioned behind him, for the two male storm riders standing at attention at his rear to come forward. _

_ "There's no need to make a fuss," Seth said. "Cale. Freeze him where he stands. Eric. Obliterate him."_

_ "As if we'd let you!" Willis cried, moving forward with Brent. _

_ Cale steped forward. He's the leaner of the two; tall and with a maroon, freckled complexion. He wore his long red hair behind him in a ponytail. Behind him, the larger Eric followed closely. Far bulkier than his graceful comrade, his heavyset frame was clothed in thin fabric which was meant to accentuate that most of his mass was well defined musculature._

_ "It's _Time_!" Cale called, disappearing from sight._

_ Eric dropped on to all fours, dragging out his legs in a wide v-shape, positioning a pair of large, cylinder laden air trecks behind him. A turbine within each cylinder began to spin furiously. _

_ And I remember thinking something like: _Shit, this is dangerous.

_ Cale's trick, _Time_, takes advantage of the flame road's high speed movement to deliver a barrage of blows to the target's vital points, shutting down their body's movement ability and getting across the illusion that time was slowing down for them. Meanwhile, Eric's trick, the activation of the turbines in his air trecks, meant that he was ready to absorb and negate any _fang_ attack that I might attempt, in effect sealing a great deal of my ranged offensive capabilities. If they succeeded, I would be as good as a rat caught in a cage._

_ I couldn't help but smile. _

_ I mean, really. They should have known better than to try catching _me _inside a cage._

_ I looked back at Sara. She nodded and turned to Seth. "You're not the only ones who can play the immobilization game. _Infinite Tremor_!"_

_ The third wheel on the boot of her air trecks parted and split, mimicking a flower's blossom. Lightly, she raised a foot and stomped down, and where her foot met the floor of the plane, the aircraft began to rumble awkwardly. The effect amplified, and soon the entire jet plane was shaking up and down, as if suffering a terrifying earthquake in the middle of the sky._

_ Sara's trick caused every rider present to stagger and lose control of their footing, Seth and Eric included, but Cale was the one most affected. It's a fairly simple technique, but simple can be deadly; it doesn't take much to unsteady a rider in the midst of battle, especially one going so fast. A little shake here and there and even one moment's hesitation is all your partner needs to land their own counterattack. _

_ I jumped. _

_ The ground shaking doesn't bother you if you're not touching the ground. _

_ Cale appears suddenly to the right, tripping forward in his stride. The opening I needed— _

_ I swung my leg forward, slashing at Cale's shoulder with a vicious downward kick. I unleashed a _fang _attack at point blank range that exploded on my ex-team member. _

_ Cale cried out in pain and toppled backwards, gripping his arm in agony. A bloody splotch appeared under the fabric of his jacket. _

_ "That's one," I said, turning away from the fallen rider. "Who's next?"_

_ Eric roared. The large rider launches himself after me, his large hands pulled into huge fists, and he swung wildly—_

_ But he'd forgotten Willis and Brent, and the two catch him with a nasty combination attack—a stream of large, frothy bubbles obstruct his path, attaching themselves to his body. Realizing danger, he tried to push them away, swiping at them aggressively, but his attempts were futile. Willis produces a large, metal rod and thrusts forward, striking Eric below his sternum, in his solar plexus. _

_ Eric's body went rigid. He spit out a nasty gallop of spit._

Brent X Willis.

_"Bubblestream Justice," Willis and Brent called out. _

_ Electrical threads began to run down the metallic pole, streaming out in vibrant arcs and following alongside the bubbles fixed across Eric's body. Simultaneously, the bubbles popped and Eric was thrown back, each watery bubble somehow releasing the equivalent expression force of a grenade. When the last bubble had destructed, the electric trails that had been caressing Eric's side slammed onto Eric, frying him with shocking electric potential. Overwhelmed by the combination attack, he sagged to the floor, the whites of his eyes rolling back; unconscious. _

**5**

_Seth sneered from his position down the cabin way._

_ I turned from Brent and Willis, and smiled at Seth. This battle had gone a lot better than Sara had anticipated so far. Seth was already down two powerful allies, and only Carmen still stood behind him—but she wasn't a fighter. She had been the team's mechanic before she had defected. She was not in a position to play any sort of offensive role in this conflict. That left Seth alone, and while I knew well enough that he was no push over, he saw no way that Seth could prevail alone, against the combined power of himself and Sara. As far as I could tell, this battle had already been decided._

_ "We can't win," Sara whispered behind me._

_ I blinked and turned around and I was surprised when I saw that Sara's expression was not one of confidence or satisfaction like my own, but instead pallid fear. She wasn't joking around, she was _afraid.

_ "Sara?" I aske uncertainly._

_ "Listen to me," Sara continued. "Do you remember what we talked about on the plane? Our contingency plan?"_

_ Brent and Willis turn around and glanced at each other before also giving short nods of acknowledgment. I frowned._

_ "What are you talking about?" I protested. "If we all attack him together, even Seth won't have a chance—"_

_ "Alex," Sara said. "Trust me."_

_ I held her gaze for awhile, before turning away, back to Seth. I nodded my acknowledgment and said through gritted teeth, "Fine."_

_ I walked forward alone, away from the group behind him who huddle together. _

_ "Done strategizing?" Seth asked. "Are you not going to attack me together?"_

_ "Don't flatter yourself, buddy," I called, kicking forward, sending a _fang_ in Seth's direction. "I'm more than enough to deal with an idiot like you!"_

_ Seth raised his hands, preparing to mold the wind around the impact wave like he had earlier, but I don't give him time to defend. The I slid toward Seth, traveling alongside the _fang_ I had launched, and so Seth was instead forced to jump to the side, letting the _fang_ rush past him. I kicked out, delivering a series of kicks and punches that Seth dodged through compact sways and blocks. Our encounter ended when Seth caught my right hook in his palm—in a physical contest, it was obvious who the winner would be._

_ "You can't beat me like this, Alex," Seth chastised. "You can't fire off _fangs_ too liberally in this kind of environment without the risk of damaging the plane." Seth shoved me backwards. "As long as we're in the sky, you're at a severe disadvantage, you know?"_

_ "Shut it, Seth," I growled. "That same shit also applies to you and your wind manipulation."_

_ Seth smiled. "You're a dog, Alex. A mutt that bares its teeth at whoever your master sics you on." Seth glanced at Sara, crouched at the far end of the cabin. "Your fangs are sharp, but you're meant to run along the ground. Creatures who roam the land have no business in the sky with birds. This is my kingdom, Alex, and you all are trespassing."_

_ I kicked forward, clashing with Seth who blocked my lively kick with his own air treck. _

_ "I told you, you can't win like this," Seth taunted._

_ "And I told you to shut up!" I dug my leg in behind to reinforce my position and then pressed more force into the foot caught against Seth. The jagged wheels began to spin and Seth, unsure of whether to expect another kick or maybe a fang, moved to collapse the wind around my air trecks. I pulled back and kicked, Seth performs a _Moon Drop_. There was a small explosion, and I sprawled backwards._

_ Seth sneered, but his leer quickly pulled into a grimace._

_ From his right leg—the leg with which he had blocked my kick—blood flowed freely. Sticking out from his leg, several thin needles of pressurized wind stuck out from his bloody gashes. In another moment, they dissipated into air, but their vicious effect remained. _

_ "_Thorns_?" Seth said, hands pressed onto his injured leg. _

_ "Not quite." I corrected. "The effect is similar, but _thorns_ are created from the sonia road's emphasis on movement and rotation." I jumped forward, legs spread, the wheels of my air trecks spinning furiously. "These are more like extremely small _fangs_."_

_ My leg connected with Seth's shoulder. Seth moved to _Moon Drop_, and the small explosion that followed destroyed some of the needle _fangs_, but not nearly all of them, and then Seth could do nothing but shield his face as his unprotected body took the barrage that I unleashed above him. Wasting no time, I capitalized on his moment of weakness and followed up the barrage by unleashing a full sized _fang _upon my former teammate. _

_ When I moved away, Seth collapsed backwards, his entire body a bloody mess of needles. Releasing a ragged breath, he landed on a passenger seat, his head rolling backward. _

_ Seth whispered, "Carmen."_

_ "It's over," I said, surveying Seth's injured form. _

_ A gunshot rang out._

_ I jumped backwards, ducking behind a passenger seat. I ran my hands over my body and I'm relieved to find that I'm unhurt. I rose and turned, only to find Carmen, the ex-mechanic, walking down the cabin way, a small hand gun clutched in her hand, directed straight at me. _

_ "What are you doing?" I asked._

_ "Don't move," she answered._

_ "I thought we were friends," I said._

_ She laughed, a shrill, short noise. "You do this," she motioned to the fallen forms of Cale and Seth, "and then dare call yourself a friend?"_

_ "I only did what I had to do," I said._

_ "And so will I," she replied. _

**6**

"_What's your READ level now? 220? 230?" Seth asked. _

_ I frowned. His voice sounded rather casual, but he still hadn't tried to stand. It was obvious that my barrage took a lot out of him. I turned back down the cabin way, where my friends remained behind, huddled around Sara and the wind regalia core._

_ "Try 253," I said, not without a hint of pride._

_Seth whistled, the sound transformed into a terribly grizzly thing by his parted, raw lips. "That's mighty impressive, Alex. Really. You've got me and Sara beat by a long shot."_

_ Beside him stood Carmen, her loaded hand still cocked at me, her other hand on Seth's neck. _

_ "What are you getting at Seth? I already beat you." I glared at Carment and her weapon. "Is _that _what you've been reduced to? Guns? I thought we were storm riders."_

_ "Now, now, Alex." Seth clucked in his arrogant fashion. "Didn't anyone ever teach you—winning a battle is not nearly the same thing as winning a war." His head turned and he smiled at Carmen. "Would you mind?"_

_ "Of course," she said. She reached out and placed a hand on Seth's shoulder. _

_ "Well, compared to your 253, my READ isn't so hot. I'm at 208 myself." Seth smiled. "But if this conflict could be resolved by simple numbers like that, Sara wouldn't be so scared would she? She wouldn't be so careful about approaching me carelessly. She knows even you can't defeat me anymore." He closed his eyes and nodded. "Do it." _

_ "_Tremor Duet_!" Carmen cried beside him. _

_ And then I was lost. _Tremor Duet_ is a move belonging to the harvest road, Carmen's unique combination road of ring and gaia. Similar to Cale's _Time_, it's a technique meant to immobilize and unsteady the target. The user (Carmen) touches the target (Seth) and then synchronizes their biological rhythms and vibrations in order to immobilize them both for a short while. Using it on an opponent could leave a person wide open so your own teammate can land with their own attack. It gave Carmen useful support in a battle, so that even as weak as she was with a respective READ level of 5, she could prove decisive... Except Seth had had Carmen perform the technique on himself and that was just plain crazy. He was just asking for me to walk up to him and shoot off a nice, big _fang_ on his stupid, obnoxious face... _

_ "Don't blink," Seth said behind clenched teeth. "You're not going to want to miss this, Alex."_

_ "_Tremor Duet_ to _Raise the Soul_," cried Carmen. Her was head thrown back, as if in ecstasy. _

_ Seth roared. The sound rushed out of him and throttled around the cramped cabin space. From his seated position, his entire body clenched, tightened and thick, straining veins become visible all over his face. It looked like he had just taken a bunch of bad steroids. Behind him, Carmen dropped to one knee, her breathing reduced to laborious gasps._

_ Seth stood up, his body a bulging mass of tensed muscle and bloody lacerations._

_ "What the fuck did you guys just do?" I asked, thoroughly confused._

_ But Seth was already moving. His strained figure blurred out of sight and before I could even blink, Seth was on me. Hands held out, placed over my head. As if placing something gingerly on my head. A point blank _Moon Drop_._

_ I was slammed down, crashing into the cabin floor. _

_It hurt like a bitch._

_ "We've been working on perfecting this for a while. Taking advantage of Carmen's ability to match the biorhythms of others as a link tuner," Seth explained calmly, standing over me. "By using _Raise the Soul_ in conjuncture with _Tremor Duet_, she focuses on slowing her own body's biorhythms and sharpening another person's biorhythms, temporarily raising the person's very metabolism and sharpening their bodily performance."_

_ "You..." I spat. "How much of an increase?" I gasped from the floor. My mouth was raw with blood and my head was spinning something awful. That hadn't been the power of a regular _Moon Drop_ trick, this one had been many times stronger. _

_ "For the duration, the target experiences a twofold increase in their natural abilities."_

_ "D-d-double?" I spat again._

_ Seth smirked and the way his tense skin stretched over his thin, bloodless lips made the gesture terribly sinister. _

_ "I said my READ level was 208. But right now, an accurate assessment would place it at around 416." Seth heaved out a slow, deep breath. "Right now, I'm untouchable. You. Sara. None of you can stop me. And when the wind regalia is completely restored and equipped on my feet, I'll be invincible." _

_ I tried to fight back. I jumped and moved to kick Seth's face in, trying to release a new wave of _fang needles_. The small, little forms bounced harmlessly off Seth's body. He scooped one out of midair and played at using it as a tooth pick to clean his teeth. I screamed at the mocking gesture. I dragged a leg behind me and kicked out a large _fang_. Larger than was safe to fire off in such a small cabin space, really. Seth doesn't even try to block the attack. He reached out with one hand and actually _caught _the shock wave, stopping it in mid passage. Without even a hint of exertion, he squeezed down on the _fang_, clamping down on it and shattering it in half, effortlessly destroying my attack with his bare hand._

_ I fell back, utterly speechless._

_ "Now, now, Alex," Seth said. "You shouldn't be in such a hurry to destroy this plane..." His smile turned ferocious. "But if you insist..."_

_ Seth crouched. Placing his strained hands over each rear wheel, he performed a _Moon Drop_ with each hand, forcing compacted wind into his sub-regalia. The rear wheels split and parted, layering outward, and losing entirely the appearance of wheels—instead, coming to look like talons._

_ I realized that Seth was no longer standing in the plane's cabin—his feet floated a few inches off the ground floor. With astounding speed, he raised a thick leg, and then kicked outward in a long arc. For a second, I remember thinking that there was no effect, and then everything split apart._

**7**

_There was a horrible crunching sound as the ground beneath me tore away and my legs gave way to open space, and suddenly I'm in complete free fall. In complete panic, my hand grasp outward for anything to hold on to, and I ended up cutting my palm on the jagged edge of a twisting piece of sheet metal._

_ Then there was silence. _

_ I blinked. Something must have struck the back of my head because a trail of dark blood led away from me in midair. My head burned with a terrible buzzing ache that deafened out everything occurring around me. I twisted his body around and took a ragged, burning breathe of freezing air. Numbly, I realizes that I was spinning._

_ I was flying in the outer area of an incredible tornado. The twister reached down from the high atmospheric cloud cover, touching down at the ground below, some 2,600 meters down. Seth floated in the tornado's center, the calm eye of the storm—his activated sub-regalia bared. The plane had been destroyed in an instant by the activation of his infinity atmosphere. _

_ I looked around and caught sight of the images of my teammates, of Sara, floating around the far side of the twister. Seth was keeping us from falling by buffeting us with enormous crashes of wind. Further down below, I could see three parachutes descending to the ground below. Seth's team. They had been prepared for this from the very start. _

_ "It's over, Sara," Seth said, over the roar of the twisting gale. He descended toward her form, caught in free-fall. "It's only by my mercy that you survive now. If I wished it, I could hurl you out of this cyclone, and that would be that. You have lost."_

_ Sara does not respond, she held the regalia cores desperately clutched in her arms. _

_ Seth reached out his hand expectantly. When she does not move, he sighed and shook his head. "Difficult to the bitter end, eh?" He reached out to her chest, ready to rip the regalia from her by force—_

_ And his hand slipped through her body._

_ Bewildered, he tried again, and again his hand slipped through. Wildly, he started clawing at her, but nothing he attempted made contact._

_ "It's an illusion," I said._

_ Seth turned to look at me, before turning back to Sara. The image of her form faded and disappeared with his realization, as does the forms of Willis and Brent at other ends of the twister._

_ "Since when?" Seth asked, turning around in circles, hoping to catch sight of the second airplane, the military carrier that had brought us here. But, as he only realizes now, it's nowhere to be found._

_ "Since after Brent and Willis defeated Eric. While we fought, they all hung back and escaped. Willis used the rising road to trick our senses. They created the illusion that they were still in the front end of the cabin, then, cloaked under invisibility, they snuck right past you while we were fighting and re-boarded their plane. They're long gone now, Seth. And so is the regalia." _

_ "You lie!" Seth fumed in livid fury. "Dammit! How could I be fooled so easily!"_

_ "Sara knew about your new combo trick with Carmen, I think," I offered. _

_ "What?"_

_ "Yeah," I explained, trying to maintain an upright posture, even as a fierce gust of wind turned me over. "So this was our contingency plan. You know, in case you showed up. She kept telling us that we couldn't defeat you, but not why. I wanted to fight you head on together with everyone, but she just said we'd lose. Looks like she was right on the money. As always."_

_ "I'll catch up to them." Seth said, his eyes rolling around frantically. "I'll find that airplane and tear is apart. I... I—" _

_ "Just give it up, man," I said. "You lost."_

_ "I'll catch up to them." Seth repeated._

_ "No you won't," I said. "Not while I'm alive and kicking, at least."_

_ "_You_?" And he laughed derisively. "You can't stop me, Alex. Haven't you been paying attention?"_

_ "Maybe I can't beat you," I agreed. "But I can sure as hell slow you down."_

_ Seth stiffened suddenly. He turned to look around, his features contorting into a mask of pitched black outrage. _

_ Flying around the periphery of the tornado that Seth had created, hundreds of thousands of _fangs_ fly about, closed in self-contained position around the furious cyclone. The fang sub-regalia's infinity atmosphere technique: _Infinity Jail_. _

_ "You used my own trick to amplify your technique's power." Seth noted. His voice now perfectly calm, but the veins along his shoulder and neck bulged wildly with his heartbeat and I knew only too well that sign: Seth was seriously pissed the _fuck_ off right now. I couldn't help but smile. "These fangs have our combined power behind them. Going through them would be suicide, even for me."_

_ "Yep," I said, closing his eyes. "So I'm afraid it's just you and me now."_

_ "I'm going to kill you, buddy," Seth said._

_ "I know."_

_ "Got any last words?"_

_ "Fuck. You." _


End file.
